Injuries/Fatigue - This year they finally have CPU teams benching their players that are considered day-to-day. I believe the last few years once their status was upgraded to day-to-day they'd be inserted into the lineup. There should be some risk/reward when handling injuries. More serious injuries (say torn ACLs since they seem to be popular) should offer higher risks for playing guys who have now reached day-to-day status. I also don't think there's been any risk of re-injury in the game. Guys coming off of long injuries or something of that nature should suffer reductions in the stamina and durability ratings for a brief period of time.
Player Personalities - This is sort of where I feel 2k needs to take the next step. Listing guys as "Laid Back" or "Unpredictable" or whatever just isn't enough. I think there should be a handful of personality characteristics such as Leadership, determination, confidence, cooperation, etc. Doesn't have to be anymore than 5 or 10. Anyway, high ratings in these traits should drive the value of players up. Teammates of Tyson Chandler, for instance, always talk about how great of a teammate he was. He should have high leadership, fairly high determination, and high cooperation. This should make him more desirable for teams to add and should positively influence team chemistry, maybe raise it at higher rates than normal.
Contrarily, teams with players with low leadership, determination, confidence, etc would suffer, like the Wizards or Bobcats. Players should also be able to improve in these throughout their careers. As of right now, there's little incentive to spend money on guys like Tyson Chandler or Grant Hill over guys like DeAndre Jordan or Alonzo Gee.
I also think that similar to MyPlayer press conferences, you should have player meetings. After reading Jerry West's autobiography, I realized that the front office often has a personal relationship with the players. They should bring back something like this:

Saying/doing the right things should keep your stars happy. Making mistakes should turn your stars into Dwight Howards and Carmelo Anthonys. One thing that really isn't touched on at all in sports games are relationships with your players. We often build faux relationships with recruits in our college games but in the end, everybody seems to be the same.
That's all I can think of right now, I'll add on as I recall more. Feel free to add any input.
Comment